Reviews with content warning for Gore - Just Like Home

Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

151 reviews

kristenreids's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This book was hard to finish. It picked up towards the end. I’m glad I finished it. Interesting twist…not what I was looking for but hey

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flamingogf's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

i had trouble sleeping after reading this book. it was unbelievably creepy at times, the sensory details exceptionally written. i was able to describe and picture in my head exactly what was going on. i thought it was very effective to write the main character in the way that she was written. she had no real discernable opinion about her father as an adult, and as a child we slowly get to unravel a story of how she became who she was and what was done to her. i was gasping and so saddened by her childhood, mainly because it was also very effectively inserted into the present day timeline. i also highly recommend the audiobook!

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czoltak's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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kitewithfish's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Another storygraph user reviewed this with "Abigail Hobbs would have loved this" and she absolutely would have loved this. This felt like a bleak and bloody dream and so very very creepy.

The book has is structured with flashback chapters that inform the book as a whole and give insight into both the structure of the house and the way Vera lived in it with her parents.

I think I might re-read this later to see how it all fits!

SPOILERS FOR ENDING

SPOILERS for the whole ending.

The element where the horrible duality of Vera's mom sometimes being awful and sometimes being kind is because she's possessed and the Thing Possessing Her is the one being nice? Absolute top tier horror, brilliant, amazing work for the girlie's (gender neutral) with fucked up moms. Really enjoyed the book leaning into the dad's serial killing being the least upsetting thing in Vera's childhood.

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whatkatyread87's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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m_moon's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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haileyhardcover's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

After learning that her estranged mother is dying, Vera returns to her childhood home. The house where her serial killer father murdered his victims and buried the bodies. The house that still has more secrets buried inside.

Um, hello? Hell of a hook, right?! I really expected to be obsessed with this book. Sadly, no. It wasn’t BAD… but it wasn’t great either.

I think something that some horror writers forget is that things need to make a certain degree of sense. You can write a story with supernatural elements and still employ logic. It’s that element of logic - that bit of sense gnawing at you, making you wonder if maybe, just maybe, this could really happen - that’s what makes a story really scary. Understanding your characters - their fears, their motivations - and making their choices align with those things is crucial to crafting a story that makes sense and has the power to really chill your reader.

The writing isn’t anything spectacular (there were multiple inconsistencies with the characters and the plot), but Gailey does do a good job of getting your heart pumping here and there. In those moments, she uses short sentences, building the tension, driving your eyes forward - but it’s too often a build up to nothing, or something that just doesn’t make sense and then never does make sense. The reveal, if you can call it that, manages to tie up a few of the loose ends, but more so makes it abundantly clear that Gailey did not know her own characters well enough and she ends up relying too heavily on trying to make things creepy and gory.

I think this book could’ve been really great if the supernatural elements were left out entirely; or, at the very least, more care was taken in the development of it and more effort put into the character development. As it is, it’s just meh.

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